For more convenient shopping, a variety of vending machines are available in the market, like the conventional vending machine for vending cold drinks and the recently available vending machine for vending hot soups and foods.
Vending items are directly listed in a track-type display area of the vending machine. After selection is made by a customer through a user interface of the vending machine, a control circuit inside the vending machine actuates a robot arm movable in two directions (X, Y coordinates) or three directions (X, Y, Z coordinates). The X-Y or X-Y-Z coordinate robot arm thereby moves to the display area to get the item, and then the robot arm conveys the item to a slide track to let the item automatically slide to an outlet of the vending machine, or directly conveys the item to the outlet of the vending machine, so a customer can take the item.
To get the item by using the X-Y or X-Y-Z coordinate robot arm, it is required to have a sufficient space inside the vending machine to allow movement of the X-Y or X-Y-Z coordinate robot arm. Therefore, the vending machine needs to be large enough in its size.
Besides, although the X-Y or X-Y-Z coordinate robot arm can convey the vending item chosen by the customer to the outlet of the vending machine, the robot arm can only convey bottles, canned drinks, or items packaged in bags or boxes, and the robot arm is not suitable for conveying items with hot soups inside. The reason is that the X-Y or X-Y-Z coordinate robot arm moves rapidly and tends to spill the hot soups inside the items while moving rapidly. Therefore, in order to convey hot soups, a different conveying mechanism for properly conveying items with hot soups inside is required.